Institution Rights and Document Citation

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Institution Rights and Document Citation

Reproduced by permission of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Terms of useThe Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has graciously contributed images under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommerical ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Visitors may download, link to and cite the images for personal research only. Any further use, including, but not limited to, unauthorized downloading or distribution of the images, commercial or third party use, is strictly prohibited. Visitors must contact the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to request additional use, at: images.scla@shakespeare.org.uk

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Reproduced by permission of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Terms of useThe Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has graciously contributed images under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommerical ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Visitors may download, link to and cite the images for personal research only. Any further use, including, but not limited to, unauthorized downloading or distribution of the images, commercial or third party use, is strictly prohibited. Visitors must contact the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to request additional use, at: images.scla@shakespeare.org.uk

Institution Rights and Document Citation

Reproduced by permission of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Terms of useThe Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has graciously contributed images under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommerical ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Visitors may download, link to and cite the images for personal research only. Any further use, including, but not limited to, unauthorized downloading or distribution of the images, commercial or third party use, is strictly prohibited. Visitors must contact the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to request additional use, at: images.scla@shakespeare.org.uk

John Shakespeare was elected as an affeeror, an official appointed to monitor the level of fines imposed at Stratford’s manorial court, for the second time on May 4, 1561, as shown here. The number of affeerors varied, but the borough most commonly appointed four. John Shakespeare had first acted in this capacity at the court held on October 6, 1559 (Minutes and Accounts, i, p. 101). As with service as constable, affeerors were usually members of the Corporation prior to their appointment. This is a further indication that by October 1559 John Shakespeare may already have been elected to serve the Corporation as a capital burgess .

The fines which John Shakespeare would be expected to assess over the following twelve months would be of the type listed at this court against the marginal note “mercia,” with the amount of the fine inserted above the offenders’ names.

Here, John is thought to have signed by mark. At this date there would have been nothing exceptional about John’s apparent illiteracy. Further, an inability to write fluently did not necessarily mean that those who made marks were necessarily unable to read. In 1564, at least 13 members of the Corporation still preferred to sign by mark, all men from the town’s commercial elite and who were clearly able to conduct their businesses and fill civic office without the ability to write (or even, by implication, to read).

It is not clear, however, whether John Shakespeare had his own distinctive mark. Previously, October 6, 1559 (BRU 15/7/39), two of the four affeerors (Richard Biddle and John Wheler) signed by name. The other two, Lewis ap Williams and John Shakespeare, made marks. Lewis’s mark is more elaborate and was said to represent a church tower or gable; he repeated the mark in 1561, as shown here, and again in 1564. Another mark, two concentric circles bisected by a cross, has not been found elsewhere but could have been added by John Shakespeare. However, scholars traditionally attributed an apparent third mark, said to resemble a pair of glover’s compasses, to John Shakespeare.

As shown here, in 1561, all four affeerors apparently made their marks. Lewis ap Williams’s “church gable,” is instantly recognizable. The other three are a cross, a letter T, and a mark similar to the “glover’s compasses” of 1559, attributed to John Shakespeare. It also resembles another mark which may be his, dating from 1564. However, another mark allegedly made by him in January 1563 is different. Finally, and confusingly, the only marks we can be certain are John Shakespeare’s are the simple crosses that occur on the sale, with accompanying bond, of his and his wife’s Snitterfield estate in 1579, and on a conveyance of 1597.

[On two sides of a single sheet, later bound into a volume of miscellanea as BRU 15/7/56, in the hand of Richard Symons]